MD MD - Nancy Snow, 44, Annapolis, 6 Nov 1980

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It does seem as though the police were incompetent at best in the 1980s.

Paul T Collins did a runner in late 1981 before he could be questioned further and nothing much more seemed to happen (with regard to him) until the immunity offer nearly 30 years later. But he was back by 1987. Unless there are 2 Paul T Collins III in Maryland he married Lydia Harian in October 1987 in Annandale, Virginia. He seems to be currently living in Laurel, Maryland and appears to have been doing so probably since the marriage. He also has a large family in Maryland (his father died in 2013) who would most likely have made him pretty easy to find after he disappeared.

Either the police have very good reason to believe what he told them originally or they were negligent in not pursuing him earlier.
 
alb1on said:
It does seem as though the police were incompetent at best in the 1980s.

Paul T Collins did a runner in late 1981 before he could be questioned further and nothing much more seemed to happen (with regard to him) until the immunity offer nearly 30 years later. But he was back by 1987. Unless there are 2 Paul T Collins III in Maryland he married Lydia Harian in October 1987 in Annandale, Virginia. He seems to be currently living in Laurel, Maryland and appears to have been doing so probably since the marriage. He also has a large family in Maryland (his father died in 2013) who would most likely have made him pretty easy to find after he disappeared.

Either the police have very good reason to believe what he told them originally or they were negligent in not pursuing him earlier.
Click to expand...

I'm going with the latter. What shoddy police work. SMH... :furious: This guy is at large in my area. Great, just great...
 
Richard said:
Inditments without a body are very rare. They can be done, however, if there is sufficient evidence to convince a grand jury that there is a case. In a Maryland case, Hadden Clark (who had already been convicted of a murder) was indited for the murder of Little Michelle Dorr, based on evidence that placed him at the scene, and with trace blood evidence found in the house where he was staying. He was convicted of murder, and then led investigators to her grave.

In this case of Nancy Snow, you have an individual who claims knowledge of her disappearance, yet the story does not check out. You also find that her disappearance enriched him to an extent - he lived at her home, stole cash from her bank accounts, etc. At a minimum, he should have been indited for theft and forgery - then pressured for more information. If he had a vehicle or boat, search warrents should have been issued for police to search them for trace evidence of Nancy's presence.
Click to expand...
 
Richard said:
Inditments without a body are very rare. They can be done, however, if there is sufficient evidence to convince a grand jury that there is a case. In a Maryland case, Hadden Clark (who had already been convicted of a murder) was indited for the murder of Little Michelle Dorr, based on evidence that placed him at the scene, and with trace blood evidence found in the house where he was staying. He was convicted of murder, and then led investigators to her grave.

In this case of Nancy Snow, you have an individual who claims knowledge of her disappearance, yet the story does not check out. You also find that her disappearance enriched him to an extent - he lived at her home, stole cash from her bank accounts, etc. At a minimum, he should have been indited for theft and forgery - then pressured for more information. If he had a vehicle or boat, search warrents should have been issued for police to search them for trace evidence of Nancy's presence.
Click to expand...
He (Paul Collins) did have a small boat! He also lived on an x mine trawler which was conveniently sunk in 16 feet of water. She could be down there! Her V.W. Bug convertible was never searched for evidence and PC was spotted driving it around town without permission, it was supposed to be in storage!
 
alb1on said:
It does seem as though the police were incompetent at best in the 1980s.

Paul T Collins did a runner in late 1981 before he could be questioned further and nothing much more seemed to happen (with regard to him) until the immunity offer nearly 30 years later. But he was back by 1987. Unless there are 2 Paul T Collins III in Maryland he married Lydia Harian in October 1987 in Annandale, Virginia. He seems to be currently living in Laurel, Maryland and appears to have been doing so probably since the marriage. He also has a large family in Maryland (his father died in 2013) who would most likely have made him pretty easy to find after he disappeared.

Either the police have very good reason to believe what he told them originally or they were negligent in not pursuing him earlier.
Click to expand...

Everything you say here is true! Still living there. Each time he was interviewed by the APD he has told a different story!! But they keep letting him go because he has a lawyer and takes the 5th.
 
Hi NancySnow,

I’m bringing over your posts from the new profile posts section:

FindNancySnow

DNA, potent tool

This article on DNA The Baltimore Sun May 11, 2005 is in error in that my mom was never seen by anyone in Annapolis, MD after returning from her job with the RNC. She called me on Nov 5 1980 & said she was flying home that day or the next, said she was exhausted & could not wait to get back & just rest. She asked me what I wanted for my 16th Birthday which was 2 weeks away.

——

She said she was going to a celebration party in Baltimore at Robert (Bob) Goodman’s home, then would leave for Annapolis in the AM. She promised to call me as soon as she arrived in Annapolis. The above article says she was last seen on November 16 in Annapolis by her house sitter Paul Thomas Collins III. That is not true. She would have called her daughters when she arrived in Annapolis as promised.

——

She would not have waited TEN DAYS & we were already calling her house by the 6/7th because it wasn’t like her to not call. No one ever picked up the phone! Then one day we got a call from Paul Thomas Collins III saying she left on a boat delivery job!

——

We did not believe him and became immediately suspicious of him! My birthday came and I waited by the phone all day, when she did not call we all knew something had happened to her.

——

My 19 year old sister got on a plane to Annapolis to start an investigation & reported in to my dad every day. She was suspicious of Paul Collins from the start as she found things in my moms apartment that she would have taken on a boat trip like her boat shoes etc...

—-

@FindNancySnow , I would like to recommend that you get verified as an insider here. This is the normal process for family members. If you don’t get verified, some of your posts may be deleted by a moderator.

Here is the information about getting verified:

Verified Professional and Insider Members

I’m also alerting our site owner @Tricia so she can help get you verified.
 
@FindNancySnow So sorry, for everything you and your sisters had to endure all this time. You're mother looks like a very beautiful and capable woman to me.

What an intens strange case. An unbelievable story.....It doesn't make any sense Nancy Snow would decide 'over night' to go on a boat trip, not informing her children, where she obvious was in good contact with. She was exhausted, wanted to go home and rest. Why would she been lying about that. If she really wanted to go on a boat trip, it would be something totally different then her former jobs...or had she done something like this before? If not, she would have been exited and this would have been the more reason to tell her daughters.

Btw, are there records or is there evidence that her contract was ending, was it a temporary project, did she quit herself? How come (and I don't believe that) she suddenly had time to go on a boat trip until Christmas?

It's understandable that LE took the story of the house sitter for granted... Sorry?? What a BS!!! How did she knew him in the first place and for how long? She would have needed her checkbook herself you might think (and she was very capable to take care of herself, considering her activities)....why would she let a house sitter take care of her payments.....makes no sense.

What was done with the 10.000 dollar the house sitter took out of her account. You would think, if there was the slightest possibility she would turn this over to her house sitter, she would wanted to have evidence, receipts or whatever to explain what was done with the money. What was his explanation? Thinking about that wouldn't she have given him some signed cheques instead, covering the costs for the time she would be away (let's presume she trusted him) and not her whole checkbook. Ridicule to think she would.

If she had allowed the house sitter to use her VW, why did he pick her up in another car? Every woman in her right mind would have taken personal belongings, make-up, etc. going on a trip. But no, they were left at her home.......also her boat shoes....hmmm. And a lot of other things are just not right.

But more outrages is that he is still "jumping around", after she went missing, marries, still living in MD, not accounted for anything. It's just unbelievable.

For convenience I refresh her missing person's files
Nancy Marleine Snow – The Charley Project
The Doe Network: Case File 1157DFMD
 
Boats in Maryland waters are required to be registered through the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Certainly a boat capable of going out into the Chesapeake Bay would be large enough to require registration.

DNR maintains records of all registered boats and all owners of those boats, dating back to the original owner.

They would be able to research (for some nominal fee) the ownership of a particular boat, usually starting with the boat's registration number (which stays with the boat throughout its existence).

They might also be able to do a cross index search beginning with the name of a particular owner.

LINK:
Boat Registration
 
Some interesting quotes from the Washington examiner June 07, 2010

Police looking for yacht in 1980 disappearance

Authorities are looking for a vessel that had been docked at the Petrini Shipyard at the time 44-year-old Nancy Snow disappeared 30 years ago. Investigators said the 55-foot sailboat, then known as the Cotton Blossom, might be a key to finding Snow's killer. Was this vessel ever tracked down? If it existed at all it would have IMO. Or would it have been to long ago?

Police got the information late last year <so in 2009> after a man suspected in the death of Snow agreed to meet with detectives, said David Cordle, chief investigator of the Anne Arundel County State Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors offered the man limited immunity, meaning they wouldn't use any information he provided against him. Police were hoping he could lead them to Snow's remains for the benefit of Snow's family, but the man didn't accept the offer. And that's that!!?? LE obviously doesn't have any proof against him and Nancy's body is never found. Was he ever an official POI? Why didn't the pushed through earlier on?

"We've hit some stumbling blocks, but have we hit the wall, yet? No. We're not going to give up," Cordle said.

The last person to see her was her house-sitter, Paul T. Collins III. Collins told investigators that, after the election, Snow met a man known as "Captain Jay" or "Captain J" at McGarvey's Saloon near her downtown Annapolis home. This suggests she came back to Annapolis, but the daughters say this is questionable/out of the question actually, other wise she would have called them after her arrival.

Before she disappeared, Snow hand-wrote a letter to a daughter saying that she was going to crew on a 50-foot Nautor's Swan sailboat. Police hope this clue will help them find the killer. Where is this coming from? Is this just media rambling or was there actually a letter. I thought there was never any contact after the last phone call with her daughter on November 5, 1980.

 
Bit of hope said:
The sailboat called the Cotton Blossom I posted was built in 1993, so it couldn't be the one involved in this case.

Here's another one built in 1979
Farr 55 Sailing Yacht 'Cotton Blossom 2' For Sale at Sea Independent
Click to expand...

The Farr 55 was a Bruce Farr design, and Farr Yacht Design is based in Annapolis so it is quite possible that a 1979 yacht from Farr would have been berthed there in 1980. The only slight complication is that Cotton Blossom 2 was built by Tim Gurr and Peter Sowman two years before Farr Yacht Design was set up in Annapolis (and they are based in New Zealand - Bruce Farr is also from NZ). However, given the nature of the yacht business it is quite likely that Farr was already based in Annapolis in 1979 (since he certainly was in 1981) and that he just used 2 builders he knew from his home country to build his design in Annapolis. All of this would be consistent with Nancy Snow coming across the yacht in 1980, but says nothing about whether it is connected in any way to her going missing.

One other possibility is the Cotton Blossom IV. This yacht won the Annapolis - Newport race in the late 50s and by the late 70s was chartering in the Virgin Islands, so it is possible she had been back to Annapolis. But she was a 72' yacht so does not fit the description. I favour Cotton Blossom 2 unless it is shown she was built elsewhere.
 
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alb1on said:
The Farr 55 was a Bruce Farr design, and Farr Yacht Design is based in Annapolis so it is quite possible that a 1979 yacht from Farr would have been berthed there in 1980. The only slight complication is that Cotton Blossom 2 was built by Tim Gurr and Peter Sowman two years before Farr Yacht Design was set up in Annapolis (and they are based in New Zealand - Bruce Farr is also from NZ). However, given the nature of the yacht business it is quite likely that Farr was already based in Annapolis in 1979 (since he certainly was in 1981) and that he just used 2 builders he knew from his home country to build his design in Annapolis. All of this would be consistent with Nancy Snow coming across the yacht in 1980, but says nothing about whether it is connected in any way to her going missing.

One other possibility is the Cotton Blossom IV. This yacht won the Annapolis - Newport race in the late 50s and by the late 70s was chartering in the Virgin Islands, so it is possible she had been back to Annapolis. But she was a 72' yacht so does not fit the description. I favour Cotton Blossom 2 unless it is shown she was built elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Good info. I think what you say about Farr hiring 2 other New Zealanders and possibly building in Annapolis and the ship docked on Petrini Shipyards makes sense.
 
I found something else about "a" Cotton Blossom..designed by William Fife lll, that had different names but was renamed to "Cotton Blossom lV"

I found this in a book (page 44). I'm just going to post some snipped parts that rose my interest (sorry for the bad quality) but at the link you can find the whole peace. Cruising World

I don't know until which year they had the charter business but the name Charlie Gee (captain J?) stand out for me. Not to say they had something to do with the disappearance of Nancy, but maybe this vessel is meant. Also the charter business was based on St. Thomas. I wonder if Annapolis would be a logical place for docking in case of repairs. If you are in the charter business you would go in bars and stuff to recruit clients, maybe crew. There is a big if....did Nancy or didn't she came back to Annapolis and what is true about Paul Collins story...

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